Masters #24 Preview

Masters 24 Preview

Masters 24 is here, and the field is stacked once again:

Three of the sixteen players with tickets this month already have 2 titles and will be gunning for their third to join Rinriet’s very lonely 3 title club. Its certainly possible that after tonight, Ri-Ri may have some company.

This Masters may have been one of the most challenging to qualify for in a very long time. Those who qualified via ladder, I salute your commitment to the grind. Not to take anything away from MCQ ticket winners, those tournaments were as weird as they were difficult to win, no easy golden tickets this month.

Amongst our qualifiers, we have representatives from each of the three competitive teams. Hyperion has the lion’s share with 5 members qualified. Both Meme Reactor and The Shrining have 2 players each representing their team.

Will this provide Hyperion with an advantage or will RNGeezuz curse them to team bash each other? We at The Shrining have indeed walked that road many, many times before. The team-mate bashing is very real folks, we will have to wait and see who matches who.

What makes this month’s masters interesting is that we have a nice mix of regular qualifiers, big names, old names and new ones too!

THE CONTENDERS

HYPERION

LORENTHIEL

Lorenthiel made a successful return to Spellweaver in last month’s Masters with 3 points, now Hyperion’s Leader has made it back to masters again this month, and he brought back up. After realising that two participants were all The Shrining needed to bring the title home (where it belongs), Lorenthiel went on a recruiting spree and brought some solid players back to the game this month. Will the five Hyperion members be enough to take back the title??? Nah, probs not… Although his skill as a player cannot be denied and he won’t make things easy on his opponents tonight. His credentials speak for themselves: A two-time Masters champion, SPW Hall of Fame Inductee, former Asperia Cup winner, and last but certainly not least… a GSL semi-finalist.

PEWQ

PewQ is infuriating to play against. He is a very nice guy, but seriously #### this guy, ###cking misplay just one time in your ####ing life…god dammit…####. Anyway, he makes a point not to play compulsively, analysing all his options before making the right play. PewQ also has two Master titles and will be searching for his third. He has a ####load of master’s points, and he is a Hall of Fame inductee. Known as a control specialist. However, I don’t think he will be able to pull off another 3x control-type hero line-up in this meta, he will be aware of this though, and I will be interested to see what tricks he has up his sleeves to deal with the shift in meta from last months tournament.

JeniecSzuji

Jeniec was the first Master’s champion to win his title with a 100% PGW. Yep, he won his title without dropping a single game the whole tournament. He is also a creative deck builder, creating the “Valor Rage” or “Chicken Bears” archetype. He also revamped one of Whisp’s old shell decks to create the current version of Corruption Dominion Sacrifice (check out the article he shared by clicking the decks link). Jeniec finished 1# in the rating race this month, not too shabby for someone who only came back roughly a month ago. From what I’ve seen he is a proficient player of any archetype but seems to favour aggressive mid-range spread lists. If your running triple aggro, he is one opponent to watch out for.

Sonneillon

Representing Team Hyperion, Sonneillon is a SPW veteran from wayyyyy back in the day. He was a member of the original Assbreakers alongside Jotto and others. Lorenthiel tells me that he is a great deck builder, always makes and plays his own decks. I have played against him on the ladder a couple of times and I can attest to his tight technical play. Sonneillon left before Masters, but he was a slave to the grind and always ranked in top 10 before his departure.

belarion

Representing Team Hyperion, Belarion is another returning veteran recruited by Lorenthiel from Gwent. Like Sonneillon, he was also before my time, luckily Lorenthiel was kind enough to give me a bit of info for the write-up: “he joined later in open beta I guess, he played Gwent as well, he loves chicken decks”(Lorenthiel)… naturally, I pressed for a bit more info and discovered that “Belarion was playing in Masters in the past”(Lorenthiel)…sorry Belarion, if you ever tire of your leader’s poor descriptions of you I would consider having you on my team 😉.

the shriniNg

DUALL

The reigning champion, coming hot off his win last month Duall has qualified again by doing what he does best, conquest format. Duall has been playing since the beta, his knowledge of the game is second only to his ability to put together excellent conquest line-ups which always serve a focused, yet flexible strategy. He hasn’t played ladder or been online too much lately. However this is pretty typical for Duall since he wins his ticket through MCQ so often, it never seams to affect his results in the tournament. He remains informed of what the popular decks are in the meta and seams to prepare his strategy well ahead of time whenever I prepare with him. He’s good, he’s the champ and he’s going for his third.

Jotto

Initially, after joining The Shrining, HallYall took this stray hatchling under his wing, and we thought he would turn into a beautiful swan...but. Instead, he fell down the meme hole and ultimately lost his ####ing mind. Pretty much all this year Jotto has made it his goal to take cards which were regarded as “trash” or “unplayable” and make decks that…for some reason…kind of…work? First came a swarm of undead hydras, Giant Gigantadon’s being swifted into opponents faces, drunk ponies and a few more that I don’t even want to talk about. Jotto is a talented player; despite the fact he crafts his decks while wearing a witch’s hat, cackling loudly over a steaming cauldron. Jotto is a real threat to get his 2nd title here. He is basically incapable of finishing with less than 3 points…I’m not exaggerating. I don’t know why but it always 3.

meme-reactor

TAURIC

MemeReactor stays on brand with Tauric - another player who shuns the traditional meta in favour of creativity and basic principle. He'd rather lose Masters than play New Horizons. He recently introduced Corruption/Dominion Implants to the meta, and I'm expecting some interesting things from him tomorrow. I wouldn't be shocked to see Elgaron/Antriel combos, Path of Transcendence, or his old standby Elrike White. (highlighted is what nate wrote last time that might give you a guide).

LIRYSSE

Now on his fifth Masters tournament in a row, including a loss in the finals to Rinriet two months ago. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Whoops…how did that get there? Oh well, it's not like I can backspace now, onto the next competitor!

sandalphon

Every month this guy plays an insane amount of games, at this rate he is the most likely candidate to catch up to cruel_tek for most ranked games. He has been really consistent in terms of qualifying for masters, I can’t remember the last time he failed to. I really wish I could write a bit more about him but despite both being around quite a lot we never seam to match each other in conquest. I will say this though, he does seem to read the meta quite well and I’ve seen some streaks he has gone on in ranked games that could only be possible if you were a skilled deck builder/optimizer.

Xhite

Another first timer, unfortunately I wasn’t able to gather much information about this player but as I said before, I don’t think a single player that qualified for these masters could have done so without having a certain degree of talent/experience. Best of luck to you on your Master’s debut White!

Nsilver

I had a quick chat with NSilver as I didn’t have much information on him. I asked him to tell me a little bit about himself and how he will do in the tournament. Here is what he had to say –“ I'm a returning player, I played in masters once before (M4) where I achieved the glorious record of 0-4, I'm still a tiny bit rusty, and not on the same level as most of the other players on the field, but I kind of want to see how I do against the best once more”…I think NSilver is playing himself down a bit here. Is he modest? Or is this returning vet more cunning than he lets on? I wouldn’t underestimate any of the players who have qualified for this tournament

GabZzzz

Undoubtedly a talented player, after only joining the game shortly after the mobile launch, GabZzzz has proven to be a talented grinder. In my absence, the only player waving the Aussie flag. So I look forward to seeing what GabZzzz can do in conquest